Review: The Fairest Beauty by Melanie Dickerson

About the Story:The Fairest Beauty by Melanie Dickerson is a retelling of Snow White set in medieval Germany. Sophie is a sixteen year old orphan who works as a scullery maid for an evil Duchess. The Duchess gets no small amount of pleasure out of torturing Sophie. Sophie knows she must escape...soon. A young man named Gabe shows up claiming that Sophie is actually a Duke's daughter and engaged to Gabe's brother. Can she trust him? Is he the answer to her prayers? And how is she supposed to protect her heart?

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My thoughts: It hurts me to give this book such a low rating. It really is a fine book, one that I would call a true retelling. It has all of the key elements that you would expect in a Snow White story-- a huntsman, seven strange men, a poisoned apple, etc. My problem, and the reason that I gave this book a lower rating, is that I had no qualms with putting this book down. I love books where I get to the end of a chapter and just have to know what happens next. Unfortunately, this book just didn't do that for me. Perhaps it's because Snow White has never been one of my favorite fairy tales (ironically, my best friends and I all have Disney princess nicknames and I am Snow White). This was the first book I have read by Melanie Dickerson and I am definitely still willing to give her other novels a chance. What books have you wanted to love but for some reason just didn't? If it was the first book you had read by that author, do you give up on them or try another?

One little thing I would like to point out: often in Christian fiction there is one main character who is a firm believer in Christ and the other lead either doesn't have a relationship with Christ or is struggling with it. In this novel, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Sophie and Gabe were both believers and supported each others faith and understanding.

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This book is my first of the year for both the Fairy Tale Reading Challenge (#FairyTaleRC) and the ShelfLove Challenge (#ShelfLove). Obviously, it fits the bill for the Fairy Tale Challenge because it is a retelling of Snow White. It has been sitting on my bookshelf for a good two years. Every time I thought about starting it I found another book that I wanted to read instead. Since the Shelf Love Challenge is all about reading the books you already have it was a perfect time to read this one.

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